


Little Boy Blue

by bookish_sister



Category: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
Genre: Gen, M/M, kids swap au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 08:54:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16783729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookish_sister/pseuds/bookish_sister
Summary: Charles Salt always got what he wanted. This time, he gets what he needs.





	Little Boy Blue

**Little Boy Blue**

**-CS-**

Charles Salt was not one to take kindly to being made a fool of.

From the heated garbage chute in Wonka’s godforsaken Nut Room all the way out to the nosy and persistent press with their snapping cameras just outside the gate, Charles’s rage festered and boiled. It had almost come close to hitting its limit when his father adamantly refused his request(as absurd as it was) for a flying glass elevator, but he(barely) managed to reign it in, as so not to give the press anything else to gossip about.

He could already hear the whispers from here. They were talking amongst themselves, asking, wondering, _judging--_

“Hey, are you alright?”

Charles started. He jerked his head to the left, coming face to leg with the still-blueberry-blue Mikey Beauregarde, who was(more or less) back to his original human shape. Why he had set himself in a one-handstand, Charles had no idea. He had caught a glimpse of the boy and his mother(who no longer looked like they maybe could’ve been clones, thank _God_ ), but he had been so wrapped up in his anger that he hardly paid attention.

Charles breathed out through his nose to further contain his ever-growing anger. “Pardon?” he asked, trying to regain an air of uncaring.

Mikey didn’t seem to be deterred. “I asked if you were okay,” he replied, twisting his neck(unnaturally. Charles tried not to flinch) up to look at the older boy. “You look like you took a bath in a dumpster.”

Charles’s nose wrinkled, not just from Mikey’s comment, but from the lingering smell that the comment seemed to make stronger. He batted a persistent fly away from his unkempt, messy hair and glared at the blue boy.

“And you look like the juicing process didn’t work,” he snaps softly, narrowing his eyes.

Mikey winced, gingerly coaxing himself out of his handstand.

“Yeah, the Oompa Loompas” Charles has to fight himself not to react to the mention of those wretched creatures, “said that the color would wear off in a month. I just have to go to physical therapy to get better control over this flexibility.” Mikey then falls back into a backbend, unnaturally twisting his neck once more.

It’s silent for a while. Charles looks for his father and finds him standing next to Violet’s father, attempting to fight off the press. He can’t seem to find the light brunette girl anywhere.

“So, what exactly happened to you?” Charles looked back down at Mikey, whose blueberry-blue eyes held a sparkle of curiosity.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Charles replies, dryly. “I fell down a trash chute.”

Mikey nods. “Okay, but how?”

Coming to the conclusion that Mikey probably wouldn’t let up if he didn’t explain, Charles did. He explained that Wonka had taken them to a nut-sorting room full of trained squirrels, and how he had just wanted a squirrel so very badly. He told the boy how the squirrels had jumped on him, teeth and nails working quickly, and how they had deemed him, and later his father, a bad nut and sent them down the trash chute. He left out the fact that he could, indeed, hear the dreadful song the little men had sung about him, and how bad it had made him feel about himself. He didn’t have anything to feel bad for, especially since it wasn’t his fault.

It wasn’t his fault, right?

“Wow.” Mikey’s face is shocked beyond belief. As if getting scratched up by rabid squirrels and dumped in trash is worse than blowing up into a gigantic blueberry and having to be juiced almost immediately after.

“Well, at least we’re both better off,” Mikey says, kicking himself off of the ground into a handstand.

Charles raised an eyebrow in confusion. “How so?”

Mikey gives him a weird look, like the answer should be obvious. “How Violet is,” he says, pointing his foot to the far left of Charles.

Charles glanced in that direction. And then he did a complete double take.

Violet Teavee was… a sight. In her interview, her light brown hair was unkempt and messy, she was sneering and scowling, and bags were beginning to form under her eyes. Now, however, she looked positively horrendous. Violet was now dreadfully tall and painfully thin, standing at nine and three-quarters feet tall. Her hair was messier, her bags were more defined, and she looked as if she were going to be sick.

Suddenly, his punishment didn’t seem that bad.

Charles forced his attention back to Mikey, who had now twisted himself into a breakdancer’s pose. When he brought this up, Mikey beamed and exclaimed that he could probably win a lot of breakdancing tournaments with his newfound flexibility. He put two fingers up in a ‘V’, then brought his hand up to his mouth and blew an exaggerated kiss to the crowd.

Against his better judgment, Charles laughed.

He immediately brought his hand up to his mouth to stifle it, but Mikey had already heard it.

“You laughed!” He smirked triumphantly, before pushing himself up into a regular standing position and grabbing onto Charles’s shoulder with a light but firm hand. The Salt heir couldn’t bring himself to push it off.

“I didn’t,” he scoffed.

“You so did!” Mikey swings his other hand out and softly punches the young debutante in the shoulder. “I made you laugh!”

The smaller, impossibly-flexible blue boy was getting louder with his triumph, which was starting to attract stares.

“Shut up!” Charles snapped. “People are starting to stare.”

Mikey perked up at this, and turned towards the gate. After a moment, he turned back to Charles.

“You know, I was kinda hoping I could still take you up on your offer,” he said softly, blueberry-blue eyes shimmering with defeat.

Charles blinked. “Offer?” he asked, confused.

“You said you wanted to be friends, back in the factory,” Mikey reminded him, and Charles realizes where this is going.

“ _You_ want to be friends with _me_?” Charles was thunderstruck. He had basically put Mikey down the entirety of their time together during the tour, whispering snide remarks to him in passing and giving him rude glares whenever their eyes met, and the icing on the cake had been the awful comment he had delivered while the poor boy was blown up into that blueberry monstrosity:

_“_ _You could put him in a county fair._ _”_

Even after a horrible comment like that, Mikey still wanted them to be friends.

“Yeah, why not?” The absence of the other boy’s hand on his shoulder brought Charles back to reality. He looked down to see Mikey in a backbend, again, looking up at him.

“It’s not like I have any friends.”

Charles looked down at Mikey in surprise. He hadn’t been expected that answer. He had assumed that someone with as many trophies and as much fame as Mikey would have people tripping over themselves to try to be his friend.

“...really?” he asked softly.

Mikey nodded. “Yep.” He flipped into a handstand, turning around so he could face the rich boy. “Everyone thinks I’m just a try-hard, so they don’t talk to me.”

That struck a chord within Charles. Immediately, distant memories of being called a ‘Daddy’s Boy’ and a stupid brat rushed back to him, with instances of friendships built on money and gifts backing them up.

Blinking back tears, Charles turned to Mikey and cleared his throat.

“Do you mean it?” he asked softly. “You really want to be my friend?”

“Of course I do.” Mikey slowly brought his legs down and grabbed Charles’s outstretched hand to pull himself into a standing position. “You’re interesting, Salt. I wanna get to know you.”

As he says this, Mikey inches closer to Charles, who finds himself doing the same. They’re very close to each other, so close that they could just lean in and--

“Charles! We’re leaving!”

Charles jerked away from Mikey, who fell to the snow with a yelp. His father stomped up to him, looking concerned and angry.

“Say goodbye to your little friend and let’s go,” he grumbled. “I can’t stand another moment among this horrendous crowd.”

Charles nodded and looked at Mikey, who was pushing himself up into a backbend.

“I guess this is goodbye for now,” he said.

“It’s alright,” Mikey told him. “I’ll be available in a month.”

Mikey waved at Charles, and Charles waved back as his father led him away. Both boys may not have won the prize, but they received something better.

A friend.


End file.
